Is 36 down okay? What should par be?

[gdub58]

Yes it is an issue. First, as I posted after your post, the events we watch and give the most attention to across the board, are those that have the fewest of these types of holes. That is, we are commenting on the issue with every event. Second, those par 2 holes are being called par 3. They're not. Why we would we do this? Only because somewhere we have decided that par 2 lacks credibility. Otherwise we'd call them what they are. From there we have the argument that par doesn't really matter. There are dozens of discussions here as to why it does but the most honest one is that it is important enough to us to discuss it ad nauseum, year in and year out.

With one very notable exception, people don't comment on the issue as being "too many under par" - they are commenting on having too many boring holes. These include not only the infamous "par twos", but also the 550' open holes where virtually everyone in Open gets a three.

We didn't hear much of that a few years back because we were thankful for any tournament coverage, regardless of the course or even who was playing.

These days, more people complain that the coverage isn't live, or that we don't get to see our favorite players, or that we don't like the commentary, or whatever. I don't know about you, but there are some tournament videos that come out that I can't watch all the way through because the course is so uninteresting - that's a good problem to have.

So, as we evolve to having a pro tour on tour-quality courses, I would think that these "par twos" will mostly disappear - not because the par is wrong on them, but because they are not good for showcasing the abilities the top players have that the rest of us don't.

 

[Consult20]

Here are the first three screenshots, there are six total:

 

[Consult20]

Here are the last three screenshots:

Crap, I posted these in the wrong thread! Sorry...

 

[lyleoross]

Here are the last three screenshots:

Crap, I posted these in the wrong thread! Sorry...

That's it, the thread drift police have been sent to your house!

 

[lyleoross]

With one very notable exception, people don't comment on the issue as being "too many under par" - they are commenting on having too many boring holes. These include not only the infamous "par twos", but also the 550' open holes where virtually everyone in Open gets a three.

We didn't hear much of that a few years back because we were thankful for any tournament coverage, regardless of the course or even who was playing.

These days, more people complain that the coverage isn't live, or that we don't get to see our favorite players, or that we don't like the commentary, or whatever. I don't know about you, but there are some tournament videos that come out that I can't watch all the way through because the course is so uninteresting - that's a good problem to have.

So, as we evolve to having a pro tour on tour-quality courses, I would think that these "par twos" will mostly disappear - not because the par is wrong on them, but because they are not good for showcasing the abilities the top players have that the rest of us don't.

I don't disagree with anything you've written. It does feel like the too far below par discussion has been growing though. After all, Steve Dodge did start a thread on the topic.

Steve West has suggested that calling them par 2 will drive change. I tend to agree.

 

[Consult20]

That's it, the thread drift police have been sent to your house!

Multitasking with too many windows open at once = :gross:

 

[gdub58]

I don't disagree with anything you've written. It does feel like the too far below par discussion has been growing though. After all, Steve Dodge did start a thread on the topic.

Steve West has suggested that calling them par 2 will drive change. I tend to agree.

It will drive change towards what end? Obviously, changing the pars on some holes will change the scores in relation to par. If that's the end goal, then that's certainly the easiest solution. I just don't think that many people beyond Steve West care if the winning score is -36, -6, or somewhere in between. Yes, Steve Dodge started the discussion, but I have yet to hear a cogent argument as to what is gained by changing it. All I hear from Steve W. is "current par is bad for the game, my way of calculating par is good".

Keep in mind that it is not realistic at this point to have "good pars" for much beyond tournaments like USDGC that have a single division without creating a good deal of confusion (10 divisions each with their own pars? Yikes!). If you believe that's the only place we need them, that's OK, but I still don't think they are currently so far off that changing them would solve anything.

If the end goal is to improve hole design on courses used on the pro tour, I think it is a stretch to say that calling some holes par two will be perceived as so odious as to drive that change. I contend that change is already happening and will continue without any changes to the current par construct (however loosely applied it may be).

If you are in the "winning scores of -36 are bad" camp, why is it bad? You may have mentioned your reasoning at some point, so I apologize if I am asking you to repeat yourself.

 

[Didn'tSeeThatTree]

If the best player wins then who cares? No one cares about disc golf looking "silly"...except maybe a handful of weirdos online hehe.

Personally I think -36 is great...birdies are fun! Heaven forbid something be fun.

 

[Steve West]

...
Here we go again. The original question in this thread was whether it was a problem that too many people are getting too many under par. The consensus here seems to be that scores well under par isn't a problem, so why do you insist on posting statements that presume that it is a problem that everyone wants solved?

Well, I had to phrase it that way to avoid the thread drift police, right?

A winning score way under par is not, by itself, a problem. The real problem is most TDs are setting par that does not represent the same skill level for all Open competition.

For all but a handful of tournaments (those where the best in the world show up and play a tough course), winning scores of way under par are not a result of the winner playing so much better than an Expert, but a symptom of par that was set too high.

Just like other symptoms, we shouldn't get comfortable ignoring it all the time just because 1% of the time it doesn't indicate a problem.

 

[lyleoross]

It will drive change towards what end? Obviously, changing the pars on some holes will change the scores in relation to par. If that's the end goal, then that's certainly the easiest solution. I just don't think that many people beyond Steve West care if the winning score is -36, -6, or somewhere in between. Yes, Steve Dodge started the discussion, but I have yet to hear a cogent argument as to what is gained by changing it. All I hear from Steve W. is "current par is bad for the game, my way of calculating par is good".

Keep in mind that it is not realistic at this point to have "good pars" for much beyond tournaments like USDGC that have a single division without creating a good deal of confusion (10 divisions each with their own pars? Yikes!). If you believe that's the only place we need them, that's OK, but I still don't think they are currently so far off that changing them would solve anything.

If the end goal is to improve hole design on courses used on the pro tour, I think it is a stretch to say that calling some holes par two will be perceived as so odious as to drive that change. I contend that change is already happening and will continue without any changes to the current par construct (however loosely applied it may be).

If you are in the "winning scores of -36 are bad" camp, why is it bad? You may have mentioned your reasoning at some point, so I apologize if I am asking you to repeat yourself.

I'll address this in detail later but simple enough, if it doesn't matter, let's raise par on every hole by one stroke. It's no longer -36, but -60! The fans will go wild. In essence, this is what we've done. We inflated par. Why? As you've written, par isn't that important and yet we insist and consistently do this? Why? The trope that par doesn't matter and people don't care is belied by our inflation of the number. Beyond the fact that doing this deligitimizes the number and the sport, clearly people care, otherwise, let's raise par on every hole by one stroke.

Please don't come back with how does this deligitimize the sport? All sport is entertainment bull pucky. All of it. Legitimacy is gained through management of the image of the sport. Anything that reduces that legitimacy is taken seriously. If you're trying to convince me that disc golf is the one sport where this doesn't matter, then I'll get out my counter culture hat and we can have a beer. I'll also remind you that in surveys of membership, our members consistently come back with, grow the sport and get national sponsors. I guarantee Nike, Addidas and other national sponsors care.

 

[lyleoross]

If the best player wins then who cares? No one cares about disc golf looking "silly"...except maybe a handful of weirdos online hehe.

Personally I think -36 is great...birdies are fun! Heaven forbid something be fun.

I agree! Let's raise par on every hole a stroke! Birdies everywhere! Eagles galore!

 

[Consult20]

... I'll also remind you that in surveys of membership, our members consistently come back with, grow the sport and get national sponsors. I guarantee Nike, Addidas and other national sponsors care.

So it comes down to which looks better (or worse) to potential sponsors and the outside world:

1) Par 2's (mini golf connotations)

Or

2) Relatively lower scores to par than traditional golf (the sport could be perceived as too easy)

That's not considering course or basket modifications.

Maybe someone should do a poll.

 

[DavidSauls]

If the best player wins then who cares? No one cares about disc golf looking "silly"...except maybe a handful of weirdos online hehe.

Personally I think -36 is great...birdies are fun! Heaven forbid something be fun.

The person pouring tons of effort and resources into making disc golf a spectator sport, cares. Or, at least, cares enough to ask the question. He started this thread.

 

[DavidSauls]

So it comes down to which looks better (or worse) to potential sponsors and the outside world:

1) Par 2's (mini golf connotations)

Or

2) Relatively lower scores to par than traditional golf (the sport could be perceived as too easy)

That's not considering course or basket modifications.

Maybe someone should do a poll.

#2 might be a little more nuanced than that. To some it may be making disc golf look too easy. But it also might just look odd---thinking that "par" is a standard, but one nowhere near the scores of the leaders. Or just that it's not very informative, of what players should be getting on a particular hole, or how they're doing mid-round.

 

[Karl]

Lyle,
Since I can't think of another sport besides golf (bg) that uses the term "par" as a major parameter, as long as we continue to use it also we will inextricably be connected with bg. Like it or not! So yes, IMO we HAVE to consider / think in terms of / etc. bg. They were there first and we copied the whole concept of "try to get from here to there in the fewest number...".
Karl
Ps: I'm not sure why the distain for bg / comparison to such?

 

[josephreese]

The top pros are the outliers. It seems so strange to me that instead of bringing only their relative scores down by making tournaments harder for them, we're considering lowering everyones scores by changing what par means.

I'm not a big fan of par anyway, so whether my score of 62 represents +8 or +14 won't affect me much or for very long. Still, that course of action seems unnecessary since if affects so many people for whom the problem doesn't exist.

 

[DavidSauls]

The top pros are the outliers. It seems so strange to me that instead of bringing only their relative scores down by making tournaments harder for them, we're considering lowering everyones scores by changing what par means.

I'm not a big fan of par anyway, so whether my score of 62 represents +8 or +14 won't affect me much or for very long. Still, that course of action seems unnecessary since if affects so many people for whom the problem doesn't exist.

From the perspective of someone trying to market disc golf as a spectator sport, the top pros aren't such outliers. And that's who started this thread.

 

[Steve West]

The top pros are the outliers. It seems so strange to me that instead of bringing only their relative scores down by making tournaments harder for them, we're considering lowering everyones scores by changing what par means.

We're not trying to change what par means. We're trying to get TD's to set par consistently so that it actually does mean something.

Once we do that, you'll become a big fan of par.

We can also make tournaments harder.

We can also use modified pars for divisions other than Open, so everyone can have pars meaningful for their competition. (But that's a different topic.)

 

[gdub58]

For all but a handful of tournaments (those where the best in the world show up and play a tough course), winning scores of way under par are not a result of the winner playing so much better than an Expert, but a symptom of par that was set too high.

Just like other symptoms, we shouldn't get comfortable ignoring it all the time just because 1% of the time it doesn't indicate a problem.

Maybe I'm just dense, but I still don't see the problem.

It sounds like you are referencing the "minor" tournaments (the local/regional B and C tiers). I've played in a lot of these, and it is exceedingly rare in those tournaments for par to be referenced - the scorecards are usually generic (just listing hole numbers) or, if we're lucky, it has the distances of the holes. The boards with all of the cards and results list total scores (I have never seen +/- par referenced on these), and I have never heard pars mentioned in a players meeting. The only place I see +/- pars referenced is on the pdga site, and I only pay attention to those to see how many strokes separated players in the different divisions.

You have tried to present "correct par" as a means to help players gauge what score they should expect on a hole or to estimate whether or not they should expect to cash. As I have been saying, players understand what a good score on a hole is without par, and there is too much variability in the composition of each division from tournament to tournament to expect that a TD can provide this benchmark for cashing.

So I'll ask my question a little more specifically - if the winning score for a tournament is -36, for whom does that create a problem? Is it the players, the potential spectators, or someone else?

 

[Steve West]

So I'll ask my question a little more specifically - if the winning score for a tournament is -36, for whom does that create a problem? Is it the players, the potential spectators, or someone else?

If that -36 is relative to correctly set par, there is no problem.

If it comes from calling an SSA=45 course a par 65, then:

https://sites.google.com/site/discgolfcoursedesign/Home/par/Par-Important